ION Awards

2016 Tycho Brahe Award

Citation: For pioneering engineering research advancing space navigation, and outstanding technical leadership and advocacy extending the utility of GPS to the edges of cislunar space.

Dr. Michael C. Moreau has championed the expansion of GNSS beyond low Earth orbit to the edges of cislunar space, through contributions across a wide spectrum of the science of space navigation, including high Earth orbit applications of GNSS, human spaceflight, robotic satellite servicing, planetary exploration, and national and international policy development.

In his graduate work, Dr. Moreau developed a GPS receiver architecture for application in high Earth orbits, developed new simulation and testing procedures, and participated in a spaceflight experiment that was one of the first to measure GPS side lobe transmissions. He continued this work to expand spacecraft use of GPS after joining NASA. His efforts led to the use of GPS on NASA’s Magnetospheric Multi-Scale (MMS) mission; four spinning spacecraft now operating in orbits whose apogees are currently twice the radius of GEO. Dr. Moreau led a team of systems engineers for the NASA’s Constellation Program, responsible for navigation requirements and flight dynamics analysis, which included innovative application of GPS to aid the navigation of human lunar exploration missions. Dr. Moreau currently leads a team responsible for rendezvousing NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft with the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. OSIRIS-REx will accomplish a number of space navigation firsts, including close captured orbits around a small near Earth Asteroid, collection of regolith sample, and the return of that sample to Earth.

Dr. Moreau has served the U.S. Government on the International Committee for GNSS. He created the GPS ACE Project, a collaboration among several U.S. government agencies to perform an exhaustive characterization of the GPS satellite transmissions from a geostationary platform. He was the Technical Lead of a multi-agency advisory group on GPS Satellite Laser Ranging, an initiative that resulted in the inclusion of laser ranging retro reflectors on future GPS satellites. He represented NASA on a multi-agency team overseeing the requirements development for the GPS III program.

Dr. Moreau received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Vermont, and MS and PhD degrees in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado.